April 20, Afraid to Stray.

Oh, how abundant is your goodness which you have stored up for those who fear you

and worked for those who take refuge in you in the sight of the children of mankind?

Psalm 31.19.

Consider two important truths in Psalm 31.19. Consider two important truths in Psalm 3119. One, the goodness of the Lord. There is a peculiar

goodness of God. That is, there is not only God's general goodness that he shows to all people,

making his son rise on the evil and the good, Matthew 545, but also a peculiar goodness,

as the Psalm says, for those who fear him. This goodness is abundant beyond measure. It is boundless. It lasts forever.

It is all encompassing. There is only goodness for those who fear him. Everything works together for their good, Romans 828.

Even their pains are filled with profit, according to Romans 5, 3 through 5.

But those who do not fear him receive a temporary goodness.

Romans 2, 4, and 5 describe it like this.

Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience,

not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance,

but because of your hard and impenitentate heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath,

when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. Kindness, forbearance, patience,

goodness. But it does not meet with the fear of the Lord, but hardness. That's the first truth,

the goodness of the Lord. Two, the goodness of the Lord.

Two, the fear of the Lord.

The fear of the Lord is the fear of straying from Him.

Therefore it expresses itself in taking refuge in God.

That's why two conditions are mentioned in Psalm 31, 19,

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